


Take a Walk With Me

by not_whelmed_yet



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Established Relationship, Ficlet, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post-War, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 16:52:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12236877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/not_whelmed_yet/pseuds/not_whelmed_yet
Summary: Rewind and Chromedome go to the Festival of Lost Light before the departure of the eponymous ship.





	Take a Walk With Me

**Author's Note:**

> Because I am great at picking up projects and bad at putting them down, I'm going to be trying Lost Light Fest this October. I'm not going to let that stop _Observing Drift_ , never fear. These ficlets are budgeted 45 minutes to write in the morning.
> 
> Day 1 Prompt : Holiday
> 
> suggested music: [otherworldly sounding bowed vibraphone](https://soundcloud.com/elliot-cooper-cole/sets/postludes-for-bowed-vibraphone)

"Rewind, wake up. I've got a surprise for you."

Rewind's optics snapped on. Domey was lingering nearby, down on one knee with his arms crossed so he could rest his head on the berth. Single berths, not enough space or fuel to recharge together. Just one of Rewind's many silent complaints about their current accommodations.

Around them, a motley collection of Autobots and affiliated scientists recharged on the few makeshift berths or sat speaking in small groups quietly on the floor. This was one of the refugee rooms high command had set up for affiliated non-combatants. Rewind reached out, groggily, and disconnected the fuel and feed lines. They hadn't gone out much, yet. Word had just come down from on high that the last of the Cons had been contained the night before.

Rewind had been jittery all week, eager to explore the surface of the planet and see if it truly was Cybertron, before it had been touched by Cybertronian hand. This was a huge opportunity to get footage of an undeveloped Cybertron. Everything going on around them was historic and he hadn't been getting any footage. Bumblebee had refused to see him when he'd requested an audience, to float the possibility of capturing documentary footage of the cleanup and recovery efforts. He'd had no luck at all getting a hold of anyone else. They were busy, he knew that. Still, it stung a bit.

"Rewind," Domey said, tapping him on the helm. "You awake yet? We've got permission to leave the building and I've got something to show you."

Rewind swung his legs over the side of the berth and jumped down. The impact jarred his knees. Even the portable berths were a little too tall for him. "Ready, Domey," he said. "Did you already go out?"

"A little bit," Chromedome said, taking his hand as they wove their way through the seated crowd. "I didn't go too far, I knew you'd want to explore as soon as possible. Even more returnees today. You can just stand out on the balcony and watch the ships come in. More and more of them, every day. I hadn't realized there were so _many_ of us out there."

"A lot of people left during the Exodus," Rewind said. He didn't bother to pull up the full census count, though he could have. "I hadn't imagined so many of them would have made it all these years, though."

They descended down the rickety staircase to the street below. Cybertronians wandered about, forms strange and new to the untrained eye. Bots without millennia of battle-adaptations. Bots with unrecognizable alt-modes, unfamiliar color schemes. Rewind switched the camera on as they continued uptown. The remains of the Kimia Facility, while mostly rubble, had been recognizably Cybertronian construction. This shanty-town in the place of Iacon must have been as well, but the methods of building were unfamiliar to him.

They rounded a corner to a conflagration of lights. Rewind stepped closer to Domey, craning upwards to see the banner of words formed out of the lights. _Festival of Lost Light_. Music swelled up around them, a haunting tune with a glassy resonance. Crystal chimes, Rewind realized, played with the bow. A song from the Suite for the Disappeared. "The new religious quarter," Domey explained. "I know we're both..." he let their shared uncertainty on religion linger in the air, "but it felt right."

"Come on, then," Rewind said. "Let's get a lantern."

A spindly bot at the entrance was handing them out, gossamer-thin spheres. Rewind cradled it in his hands, while Chromedome took the vial of additives needed to make it glow. They stepped inside the quarter, the chatter of the street becoming concordant voices lowered in prayer and reflection. The sound of the music rose high and plaintive over their heads in the darkened space. They settled at a table, Rewind holding the lantern while Domey opened it up and filled it. It began to glow faintly as the liquid reacted with the coated surface on the interior of the lantern and turned into luminescent gas. They reshuffled themselves to hold the sphere between their outstretched palms.

They hesitated for a long moment. "I don't know he traditional words," Chromedome admitted, ducking his head.

"Do you want them?" Rewind asked. "Or do you want to make something up, just for us?"

"I'd love to hear you do it," Domey said softly, smiling under his faceplate.

Rewind nodded and searched his memory-banks for the appropriate liturgy. It was in _Old_ , of course, but that didn't matter. A call to remember the joy of the spark, the warmth of it's glow, the light it had given. A slow reflection on the fragile nature of the spark, the ways in which it was vulnerable to harm and to hardship. And a rising recitation of the warmth of the afterspark, the comfort of it's embrace, the place where all the lost sparks that they had known would now reside, waiting for them.

"Now we speak of them," Rewind said, nudging the lantern forward to bump against Chromedome's hands. He was getting that dreamy, far-away look in his optic. "Just say their names and where we lost them. I can do the closing liturgy at the end."

"Let's start with Kimia," Chromedome said, nudging the lantern back to brush against Rewind's palms. "It's a long list."

They had moved on from Kimia into those lost in the fire at the Aersis science station when they, and all the other mourners, were rudely disrupted by Riptide shouting something about jump ships. He was with Pipes, and Drift. A strange group. They moved away and Rewind and Chromedome steadily approached the point where they would have to speak about Dominus.

"Should we?" Domey asked. "We don't know; we're not giving up on him."

"Well, he's lost, in one sense of the word or the other," Rewind said. "And finally, we dedicate this light to Dominus Ambus. For his nobility and his kindness. For bringing me to the light."

"For bringing you to me," Domey said.

"And to all of these lost sparks, may you have peace and may you be whole. And in your wake and in your absence, may we someday be whole as well." Rewind said softly, as the Hymn of the Departed rose melancholy over their heads.

They walked back to the doorway of the quarter, where the lanterns hung thick in the air. With a shared glance, they let it go. Their light bumped it's way upwards, the gas within fully reacted now and lighter than air. It bounced off a few of the surrounding lanterns, then headed straight upwards, disappearing up among the stars.

"We'll find him," Chromedome promised.

"We don't even know what we're going to do next," Rewind said. He looked around the gathering, the wreckage and ruin and haphazard shanty-town. "What do you _do_ after it all ends?"

"I don't know," Domey said, pulling Rewind close into a hug. "But whatever comes next? We'll do it together."

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! This wasn't edited, so if you saw a mistake feel free to let me know. I'm over on tumblr at [ notwhelmedyet](http://notwhelmedyet.tumblr.com/).


End file.
